The weather forecast overestimated the thickness of the cloud cover, and the latest revision acknowledges that it is only medium gloomy right now, however the forecast still insists that before long the cloud will get denser, and the light even dimmer. It is one thing the BBC (Meteogroup) and Met Office agree on this morning. Despite the dense, dark clouds it is predicted it will be another dry day. Later today there could be some sunny spells, and the temperature may reach 23° C. I have a funny feeling that might be a very humid/close 23° C. Tomorrow may be almost a re-run of today, but with any sunny spells replaced by thick gloomy clouds.

   As intended, I didn't go for a walk yesterday, but as not intended, I didn't do half the things I thought I might do. I did do half the laundry - the whites and light colours that I did separately from black t-shirts and the like. Maybe I will do those today. I also did all the washing up, and put some food waste into the brown, garden waste, wheelie bin. I was not asked to renew my garden waste collection this year - presumably because Covid-19 messed up the council planning. I have noticed quite a few people have been putting their brown bins out for emptying, and I probably ought to do the same, but my usage is far, far less now my garden is mostly under control. At the moment that bin is more like a compost bin, and the stuff at the bottom will just be black silt.

  Doing some gardening, mainly weeding, but also getting the hose out, is one thing I intended to do, but somehow never got around to doing. I think I was enjoying resting too much. Oddly enough, I can't remember having a snooze, or siesta yesterday. That was another part of the imaginary master plan that I didn't carry out. One thing I did do has it's roots either in something Michael said a little while ago, or in something I did while I was out walking on Sunday. In fact they both reasons for a bit of organised madness.

  While Michael was here for a drinking session he remarked that while holidaying in Italy he had been drinking what he though was "Peroni Lite". I did an internet search to see if I could find it. I did find there is an alcohol free Peroni, and Tesco have stocked it, and may do so again, but Michael insisted it was not an alcohol free beer. I did find Peroni Legarra (I think that was the name), and that is a lighter version of Peroni that includes maize as well as barley in the recipe. It is very slightly lower alcohol than normal Peroni, but not low enough to merit being called "low alcohol". Unfortunately I couldn't find a single stockist for it.

  One potential lead I followed on the internet took me to a beer (and food) seller that specialised in Australian, New Zealand, and South African stuff. They are based in the UK, and so there is no mucking about with international orders. I had a look through their offerings, and most of the beers were unknown to me. Of particular interest was that they did free shipping, but with the catch that the order had to come to more than £95 !

  The other thing that conspired to make me order some beers was that on Sunday I passed a hole in the wall cash machine, and decided to check my bank balance. I was rather worried that it was going down a bit quickly back in the spring. Maybe in June, or July, it seemed like my spending had been going down for some reason. For the last month and a half I have not done any shopping in shops, and on Sunday I realised that my savings were actually going up because I was spending less (maybe only by a small fraction) than my small BT pension brings in. I thought I had been spending a lot on Amazon orders, but in fact many of them were only what I might spend twice a week in Tesco, for instance. I was spending that amount not twice a week,  but once every two weeks.

  The result was that yesterday I felt I could afford to spend £95 on booze (and a few snacks). I think it worked out to about 30 bottles/cans of beer, and that should last me a long time. I still have many bottles of cans left from my earlier beer orders (although I am down to my last 8 cans of Guinness). If https://www.sanza.co.uk are true to their word my order will be despatched tomorrow, and be here sometime on Thursday.

  I kept feeling hungry yesterday because I didn't have sufficiently intense distractions (or was never more than 1 minutes walk to the fridge). I did my best to eat carefully. For lunch I had a fish salad. It was two small cans of mackerel on a ready made side salad. The salad was rather small, and with hindsight I should only have used one tin of fish. Maybe one of the worst snacks was rice crackers dipped in mild salsa.

  The mild salsa was vacuum sealed in a jar that I probably bought 5 or 6 years ago. I am unsure how much sugar was in it, but I expect it was quite a lot. The good thing was that it was in perfect condition, and the only way I could get the lid unscrewed was to release the vacuum by piercing the lid. I converted it from mild salsa to hot salsa by adding some hot pepper sauce. I soon broke out in a sweat after that. The "Caribbean Hot Pepper Sauce" I used does make me sweat a lot. I try not to use it in polite company !

  Dinner was the last of the peri peri chicken that came with my takeaway a few days earlier. I picked the meat off the bones, and then anointed it with hot chilli sauce before giving a good zapping in the microwave. I ate it with a small can of marrowfat peas - another source of sugar in my diet yesterday. It was nice, but didn't seem to satisfy me. It wasn't long before I decided to eat the second to last ready made salad I had in the fridge. It was past it's best before date by a day, but OK when drowned with balsamic vinegar and oil dressing, and some "Mediterranean style" cubed cheese in oil with herbs.

  On "too much information" fact about yesterday was that prior to going to bed I had not passed a single poo. That changed after going to bed. I was about to get comfortable when I realised there was another reason to be uncomfortable. I feared that it would be the start of multiple visits to the toilet, but it was all over in one visit. After that I could snuggle down under the duvet before kicking it partly off because I felt too hot, and soon fall asleep.

  I had one of those nights which started off good, with huge (2 to 3 hours) of time passing without even realising I was asleep. After one very long period of sleep I woke up at 2.48am (or at least that is the first time I became aware of). I seemed to stay awake for ages after that, but I then noticed that the clock was advancing far faster than I thought it was. I must have had several periods of sleep ranging from 30 to 60 minutes without realising it. Finally, at just gone 6am, and with only the first hints of daylight, it felt like time to get up.

  This morning was another morning where I felt "sort of OK". Without testing out each joint, my only complaint at that time was that my back felt a bit stiff, and potentially painful. I think it had eased up before it could give me any trouble. I set about measuring all my health indicators. My blood glucose was very high (but still under 10) and I have already suggested a few reasons for it, but forgot to mention some bottles of beer I drunk in the afternoon. Each "wrong thing" would have been OK by itself, but when combined they were not !

  One curiosity was that my second reading showed my blood pressure to be unusually low for the morning. It was more like some of the very low readings I get after eating a big dinner. My weight was up a bit more than I was happy with initially, but this morning I am the opposite of constipated (but not in a violent way). After a second visit to the toilet my weight was more acceptable, but still 400gm higher than yesterday morning. Some later visits to the toilet (and there could still be more to come) improved that by almost 200gm. If I hadn't drunk anything, and hadn't eaten a small wine glass sized portion of peanuts, I may have seen another small improvement after another two visits to the toilet.

  If I am very careful with what I eat today I might see a small weight drop tomorrow morning, but there are problems. I can't seem to raise the enthusiasm to go out for a long walk under a dark grey sky, and I fear today may be very similar to yesterday. I feel fairly sure that I will be doing some gardening today, and that can burn a few calories off, but it doesn't keep me far enough away from the fridge. The best I can hope for is that the potential sunny periods for this afternoon happen, and happen earlier than the most optimistic forecast. It that can be so, then maybe I will end up going for a walk.